Beneath the Surface

The Hidden Realities of Teaching Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Young Learners, K-6

Ken combines important research with 30 years of experience teaching diverse learners to create a framework for understanding and reaching ELLs in mainstream classrooms. He provides practical strategies for literacy instructions as well as mathematics.

Paperback

Full Description

Beneath the Surface provides both a framework and specific pedagogical strategies for working effectively with students learning English….Ken Pransky asks teachers to take an honest look at who they are, what they know and believe, and what they do in their classrooms. The result is to encourage teachers to be genuinely empathetic and—in the end—exactly the kind of teachers we need for the twenty-first century.

—Sonia Nieto

Author of Affirming Diversity, Fifth Edition

You have culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students in your classroom. Some or all are underachieving. You’re told you should teach differently, test more. You should make a stubborn achievement gap go away. But you just can’t seem to make it work. With Beneath the Surface, you’ll learn how to help CLD students think and learn in more school-matched ways—by first learning to think differently yourself.

In Beneath the Surface. Ken Pransky combines important research with more than thirty years of experience to create a framework for thinking and strategies for practice that will help you:

learn who your CLD students are on their terms

understand the process of learning in a deeper way, so that your teaching becomes more effective

explicitly support CLD students’ acquisition of school-matched English

identify and teach underachieving CLD students the “secret” skills that are essential for academic success—and that are part of the upbringing of children from the “literacy culture”

help underachieving CLD students succeed in math as well as reading.

With Beneath the Surface you can begin closing the achievement gap. You’ll see classroom learning in a whole new light, and find effective ways to act on your observations to the benefit of all your students. You’ll help CLD students build the foundation of confidence, skill, and belonging that every student needs for independent achievement in school.

Every student in your diverse classroom wants to—and can—learn. Discover ways to help make it happen by looking Beneath the Surface.

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Contents

1.Children as Thinkers, Learners, and Users of Language: A Sociocultural Model